Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Thea works through the medical kit first. She checks my pulse, blood pressure, pupils, temperature—methodical and unhurried. Only when she is satisfied does she set it aside, take my wrist between both hands, and let her violet Thread magic gather.
“Using my magic feels good,” Thea says, humming beneath her breath. “So ignore me.”
There is a glow in her face and eyes. She enjoys the challenge, which must be part of what drew her to medicine in the first place.
I watch Cáel in my peripheral vision while she works.
Two years older than I am and a year younger than Vivian. A governor. A prodigy in a world where slow ageing makes age almost meaningless.
His magic is extraordinary. It must be if he is to hold his position.
Thea’s Thread magic feels different. Cáel’s is warm, almost familiar now; Thea’s begins as a cool numbness, followed by the unmistakable tug of stitches.
There is no pain, only the sensation of something pulling at my magic instead of my skin. Every so often, her magic snags, and something far deeper tugs back.
She hums softly the entire time.
It is faintly maddening, but I say nothing.
Cáel sits ready beside me, his hands poised to renew the tracker ward if anything shifts.
Thea’s humming stops.
She has gone pale. Sweat beads along her hairline, and her fingers tremble as she releases my wrist. She lowers my arm carefully onto the cushion, sanitises her hands, then tucks them beneath her arms. “Well,” she says, “that was interesting.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m great. My magic wasn’t the problem.”
She looks from me to Cáel and back again. “I’m so sorry, Elmo.”
Cáel goes very still.
Whatever she has to say, it is better out than in. I try to look encouraging. “Rip the plaster off,” I tell her.
She makes a small, distressed sound.
Seeing Thea upset is awful. Vivian will be worse.
“Am I going to die?” I ask.
“Not right now,” she says carefully. “But you mentioned a link between you and the rune network. The suppression grid.”
She draws a breath and steadies herself. “It is more than a link. Thread magic shows it clearly. You aren’t merely connected to the network, Elmo. You are interwoven with it.”
The room seems to contract around us.
“Your life force and the network’s existence are stitched together so deeply that I doubt they can be unpicked. Not quickly. Not safely. Not with what I know.”
Her eyes shine. “You are part of it.”
Silence.
So much for thinner than Mother believes.
Vivian appears in the kitchen doorway, the tray forgotten in her hands.
She says nothing.
She does not need to.
All the colour has drained from her face.
Then she turns and goes back into the kitchen, and I hear the tap running, and running, long after any kettle could need filling.
“So,” I say at last, “if we destroy the network, I die. And if something destroys me before we sever the link properly, the network—”
“—loses the magic stabilising it,” Cáel finishes quietly, “and cascades.”
“And everyone else suffers.” I study my wrists where they rest on the cushion, the government marks innocent and ugly against my skin. “Can Thread magic do anything? Is there any way to separate me from the network?”
“I don’t know,” Thea admits. “There is too much power tied in; I can’t see clearly. The workmanship is ancient. Almost alien. It’s as if the Arcane Magic found the link to you and has reworked itself. The knowledge needed to unravel it safely vanished centuries ago.”
She flexes her still-trembling fingers. “It would take years of research even to know where to begin.”
“And we don’t have years.”
“No.”
“Look again.” Cáel’s voice is flat and tight. He is barely holding himself together. “There must be something.”
“Cáel,” I warn.
“Look again, Thea. Please.”
Thea glances at him, then back at me. “If we could get her out of the city in the morning,” she says slowly, “away from the network entirely, the connection might weaken. I don’t know whether she can cross the boundary safely, but we need to test it.”
She leans forwards, thinking aloud now. “The grid might settle if her magic no longer feeds it. It wouldn’t solve the problem, but it could buy us time. Time to find the knowledge we need.”
“Then we leave,” Cáel says at once. “All of us.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“Elenora—”
“These are my people. This is my city, and whether I caused this or not, my name is written through every part of it.”
I lift my chin. “I’m not running.”
Every scenario we imagine ends the same way.
With me dead.
And then there is Cáel.
Loving him…
I make myself shape the word, although some part of me flinches from it. Loving him, even for this short stretch of a life never meant to last, is worth all of it.
Cáel looks ready to argue, but settles for pressing his lips together in a thin, stubborn line.
Vivian enters with the tray of tea, Mina close at her heels, and sets it on the coffee table. “What else did I miss?”
“Nothing. We’re leaving in the morning,” Cáel says.
“Oh.” She looks between our faces. “Well. Good. Then we’d better get some sleep.” Her gaze drops to the tray. “Have we time for tea?”
He looks as though he wants to refuse. Then he exhales. “Yes. We have time for tea.”
Thea ignores her drink and insists we stay downstairs where she can keep an eye on me, then hands out blankets and spare pillows with the grim efficiency of a woman who has decided rest is now medically mandatory.
I take a mug and study the steam curling from its surface.
A strategic retreat.
Without my magic to sustain it, the network may settle for a while.
Long enough, perhaps, for Thea to find the knowledge we need.
The evacuations cover only the anchor zones. If the network cascades rather than fails in isolated bursts, there will be nowhere safe.
Hundreds of thousands of people are at risk.
So we will rest for a few hours, reassess at first light and leave before the city properly wakes. Then we regroup and search for another path.
My hand shakes hard enough to make tea kiss the rim. I set the mug down untouched.
Cáel settles beside me and holds one arm open, waiting.
I hesitate for one breath.
Then I lean into him.
His arm closes around me, warm and careful, and Mina climbs half across my legs with a possessive huff. She knows she should not be on the sofa. For once, I let her.
I let myself be held.
I glance up at Cáel. His jaw is set. His eyes hold something he would not want me to name.
They will get themselves killed keeping me alive. Every one of them, if I let them.
I will not let them.
I know exactly what I am worth in this equation.
But I can try his way first.
If it fails, I will try mine.